WHEN JOHN DENVER WENT TO IBIZA…..

My effort come up with an ICA for New Order last June placed Run as the final track on Side A when I said:-

Run is one of the most outstanding songs on the album and rather bravely the band went for an edited single release in due course in which about 45 seconds are chopped off and by editing down the dreamy instrumental finish to the song and replacing it with more of the re-recorded vocal with Barney’s voice given more prominence than the original mix. It’s a decent enough mix and does a job of giving us enough changes to think of it as a new song altogether but it’s not a patch on the original.

The remix was in fact worked on alongside Scott Litt who at tht point in time was known for having worked on couple of LPs by R.E.M. The fact that he would also work on the multi-million sellers Out Of Time and Automatic For The People albums in the 90s and become one of the most talked about producers of that era was all in the future…..

Run 2 is really quite a different version. To expand on what I said in the ICA piece, the long instrumental section at the end of the original is replaced by a repeat of the chorus while there’s also greater prominence given to Bernard’s vocal and guitar and Hooky’s bass lines in an effort to make it more appealing to radio stations. Despite this, Factory Records didn’t press up all that many copies and it wasn’t the easiest thing to find in the shops.

The record stalled at #49 in the UK charts which was the poorest showing by a New Order single in a long while. But this where the fun really started…..

After the release, John Denver (or more accurately John Denver’s lawyers) sued the group, claiming that Run 2, in particular the instrumental part, sounded too similar to his hit Leaving On A Jet Plane. The case was settled out of court, and as a result the single in it’s remixed form was, for a very long time, out of print save the original few thousand copies made available in 1989.

As a result, Run 2 was a bit of music much sought after by fans, especially outside the UK (it was never made available at all overseas). There was much anticipation when Run 2 was listed on the track lists of compilation LPs released in 1994 and 2005, but in fact it was always the original version from Technique that was included.

But finally in 2008, a deluxe edition of Technique was released that included the extended mixes of Run 2 and the track MTO that had been on the b-side of the 12″. But even now, the regular mixe of Run 2 and minus mix of MTO are otherwise unavailable.

Unless someone rips them from vinyl:-

mp3 : New Order – Run 2
mp3 : New Order – Run 2 (extended mix)
mp3 : New Order – MTO
mp3 : New Order – MTO (minus mix)

Oh and nowadays, the credits for all newly released versions of Run are attributed to Sumner, Hook, Morris, Gilbert and Denver.